I started writing a piece before the Sheffield Wednesday game on Saturday about parallels with last season. I nearly revisited it on Monday to further point them out, but last night’s win at Sunderland has sort of blown this apart.
The
excitement many had before the Leeds game was understandable with good form
following such a poor season the one before. But it forgets that we had a
similar bright start last season under Montanier. We had 3 wins out of 5 before
the international break, and felt good. It was then after the break (and also
crucially in part of what I was saying a visit to Sheffield Wednesday with a
defeat.
Crucial
differences are though we have already won away and more than once, which took
so long last season. Getting an early away win gets that hoodoo off the back.
We even drew against Rotherham away last year; such was our inability to close
out away games.
We aren’t
laden with unknown quantities. I was speaking to my friend at the Wednesday
match last year when we bought on Dumitru saying “I’m just not sure what his
game is meant to be… is he pacey? IS he skilful? Is he powerful?” (Turns out
none of the above) and the same was with Lica. Lam and Kasami were largely
unknown, Stojkovic was new to England. This year we know our players more, we
know what their games are, their strengths.
The two
recent defeats were against a team in Sheffield Wednesday who has been a
fixture in the playoffs for the last few years and have invested heavily over
the last few years. and in Leeds who are flying high. There’s no shame in some
of these results. There is little point in reading too much into league
position till 12 game sin. In 12 games you should have had a mix of good teams
and bad teams. Before that is too soon.
But
expectation is crazy again. We missed relegation last season by a whisker. Yet
there are some who seem to think we are world beaters. I’ve seen numerous
people suggest changing manager on Facebook in the comments sections of Forest
updates. Who they think we’d get or who would be better, that’s something they
never feel the need to qualify or expand on. It’s like they haven’t seen the
last decade or so, and especially the Fawaz regime, that chopping and changing
creates a mess. Fawaz especially created problems by always changing the
manager, but it’s now created a norm for fans where if a few games don’t go
perfectly they feel justified in calling for manager’s heads.
The players
fans are getting on the back of are young experience players who will grow, rather
than battle hardened veterans. I think abusing a young player is stupid. It affects
their confidence so much, not that attacking any player in the cowards way on
twitter, hurling abuse whilst knowing that the other party can’t really do
anything to retaliate is ridiculous. But to young players is particularly bad.
I’ve spoke
before at length about the abuse Ben Osborn gets. That is frankly retarded. It just
feels like idiots online like to band together as it makes their odd views feel
legitimized. Before hand in the stands they’d get shouted down. Now online they
find others who agree.
The win last
night means that in the binary world of the Twitter Forest fan everything is
good again. The old adage you are only as good as your last result is never
more prevalent than amongst the online community, who seem to react to each
result with increasingly polar opposite reactions. A defeat means certain
relegation. A win means the playoffs are a certainty. It’s like they forget the
ebb and flow of a 46 game long season.
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